


lipstick stains

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Five has issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Manipulation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Consensual Touching, all the fam is there & have parts but not big enough roles to tag, technical season three speculations but everything’s pretty vague, the handler is creepy!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Five doesn’t love the Handler. The Handler doesn’t love Five. They’re mortal enemies, feuding until the end of times, until one can finally conquer the other.At least, that’s what Five likes to tell himself.(Her lips on his neck don’t make him feel so guilty when he pretends this is nothing but a lustful affair.)
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 66





	lipstick stains

Five wasn’t exactly used to compliments.

For the first thirteen years of his life, he never received very many. His father forbade his fellow siblings from complimenting him, lest his ego should become further swollen. And of course, his father very rarely praised him out of malice and simply because Five was easily his least favourite child (with the exception of Vanya), and Five wears that fact with pride.

(If Five wasn’t so stubborn, if Five wasn’t so adamant on bending the rules, he knows he could have been his father’s favourite child. After all, so his siblings have told him often in his youth, he’s horrifically similar to his father. That same thirst for knowledge, the same inability to love normally, the same terrible wit. Perhaps it’s as they say with magnets- similarity causes repulsion.)

Five was an arrogant child, there’s no question there. His arrogance over his intelligence lead to him frequently breaking rules, questioning his father, and talking back. But perhaps his father had been right- it was that arrogance that led him astray in an apocalypse for those forty years.

And of course, there hadn’t been a living soul in the wretched ruins of this new hell for him. There was no voice but Delores to compliment him when he managed to survive another day, when he found water or salvageable food, when he managed to gain ever so slightly the mathematical formulas necessary for proper time travel.

However, under the Commission, it’s a different tale.

It’s only the Handler who offers her two cents. Most of the other workers appear too afraid to speak to Five; it doesn’t surprise him, considering how aloof he is and his general resting bitch face forged from living in a household of seven siblings. He’s simply not a pleasant person, but the Handler doesn’t seem to mind.

“You know, Five,” she begins, the chair she had been sitting in creaking ever so slightly as she rose to her full height. She’s taller than Five even without the heels, though from a lacking balanced and nutritious diet, Five never grew to be very tall in the first place.

She plucks the mission report from Five’s hands. The Manila file folder is stained in red fingerprints. Five’s pressed suit, while remaining wrinkle free from a job exceptionally and effectively completed, didn’t escape the bloodbath he had been hired to create. Red splattered at his shirt and the cuffs of his blazer. There’s a slick spot of blood pooling in the ground from where he first landed. The sticky crimson was even splattered across his cheek.

“You never cease to amaze,” she continues, flipping through the folder, clearly not reading any of the information. Likely, she already knows every detail he bothered to jot down. “Truly, your skill set only continues to sharpen.”

Five shuffles his weight. “I’m the best you have.”

She laughs at his remark. “You certainly are. You’re the best agent I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Her eyes roam freely over him, and Five feels more akin to being sized up by a predator.

She moves forward. She’s fairly close, far closer than anyone else dares to achieve. The people here fear him, afraid that too many years of isolation have rattled his mind loose of all screws. Isolation is a dangerous form of torture, and the Commission knows this well.

The Handler has no fear in her eyes as she crosses the distance. There’s a sharp smile on her painted lips that cover piranha knives. She’s not afraid of him, and Five isn’t sure if he’s bristling over that fact, or if there’s something similar to relief flowing through his blood.

“You’re quite the dangerous asset,” she begins. She’s so close now he can feel her breath, which is as shallow as her disgusting attempts at appearing a pleasant person. “But you know…”

She plants a hand on his shoulder. He stiffens at her touch, unreasonably uncomfortable. He’s spent far too long in a desolate wasteland where the only flesh that ever brushed against his skin was the decaying rot of his siblings and skeletons he tripped over on occasion. 

Another hand reaches for his tie. She loosens it and gives him an expectant look. “I'm sure you have plenty of more assets…”

He’s only vaguely aware that these are likely flirtatious advancements. It’s been a while since he’s stepped foot into a functioning society. He blinks a few times, and admittedly, looks away. He’s not shy, but this is territory they’ve never crossed into before.

She’s thrown out remarks similar like this before, about his appearance, that make his skin crawl for indiscernible reasons. She’s interested in him, in a sense similar to that of a scientist watching over a new specimen, yet with a different look in her eyes.

“My assets lie in killing and teleportation,” he flatly declares. 

“You know, when I first found you, you were in such a deplorable state. But now that you’ve gotten all cleaned up, thanks to me, you’re looking like quite a gentleman.” She lets a hand cradle his cheek. Five hates the fact that he leans into her touch, because it burns hot against his skin but he’s never craved contact more.

Five hates this woman. He knows she’s just using him and will happily dispose of him when he has outlived his competency. She will kill him without hesitation when he reveals he isn’t completely under her thumb, when he reveals his plan to escape back to his family without her help. She’s the only thing separating him from his family now.

And yet, she’s the only person in his life right now.

She leans closer. Her painted lips ghost over his ears. “You look like eye candy, honey. And I want a bite.”

She grabs him by the tie and pushes him towards her desk. Instinctively, his fight or flight skills are activated, but before he can try and throw a punch, her lips are pushed against his.

It’s a fight, really. A battle for dominance as she keeps him pinned under her, as she pushes her lips against his, biting and bruising. Five doesn’t know what he’s feeling at this moment, doesn’t know if he should push her off or if he should let her have her way.

It’s a fight, and Five loses, almost devastatingly fast. He’s never kissed before, and it’s clear that she has. He’s clumsy and unsure of what to do for the first time in his life.

When she moves away and Five can see her eyes bore into his, he can feel the red lipstick stains on his lip bleed into the blood still drenched on his cheeks.

-

It’s a game they play, a very, very dangerous game that teeters on the edge of becoming something more.

They know exactly what will occur- they know that they are destined to become enemies. They know Five will betray her and she will try to kill him and he’ll strike back just as fierce.

It’s nothing more than an affliction of physical infatuation, an infestation of feelings a bit too intimate to call lust, but Five refuses to give it a name. There is nothing between them than sheer material and somatic desire.

Five feels like he’s infested everytime he comes to her office to deliver a report, every time she plucks that manilla folder from his fingers and lets her hands linger a bit too long, every time she presses her painted lips against his flesh. There are roaches inside his body, not butterflies, frail and harmless. No, there’s nothing but those nasty insects crawling under his skin in the places she touches.

There’s no love between them. There’s no trust, there’s no substance to call this a relationship. They respect each other’s minds, respect that they’re both equals they’ll never find again, and they let out a bit of steam.

Five isn’t in love. Five can’t be in love- he has a mission to fulfill, one much more important than causing the Hindenburg disaster or assassinating William McKinely or stabbing Caesar. He has a mission, one more important than the blood he’s doused in, than the scars he’s carving, than the bullets he’s firing, than the fleshly meetings between him and the Handler.

He has to save his family.

-

He betrays her.

It’s an eventuality. They both knew it.

Instigating whatever little fling the two of them had had no discernible motivation he could truly understand, at least from her part. What did she gain from it? 

It hasn’t caused a hindrance in his attempts to murder her. He feels no remorse for her. He feels no love for her. He won’t offer her mercy when the time comes, and he eventually proves that time after time when she comes crawling back from the grave over and over again, a cockroach that refuses to be squished under his heel.

He doesn’t understand the little dance they have, this bizarre cat and mouse. This battle of wits between them has an electric charge he doesn’t understand, a tension thicker than blood. He can’t quite wrap his mind about their strange relationship.

They’re enemies now, forever. They loathe each other’s guts, and won’t hesitate to stab each other in the back. It was like that, too, back when he pretended to fall under the regime of the Commission, when he pretended to be a loyal servant. But it’s open in the air now, a fact between them that isn’t hidden by charades.

The Handler seems obsessed with him. He knows it’s only because of his skills, only because of his abilities. He’s a damn good murderer, and if she could just keep him on a leash, then the Commission would prosper well. He’s a killer, a homicidal maniac who has the special powers to perform mass murders previously incomprehensible. 

She only wants him for his assets. Nothing more.

-

Hazel kills her. And then Five kills her. 

And then he kills her again. And again. And again.

When she comes back from the dead after he shot her to death in the barn, which was a very, very lucky miracle that left him aching for days afterward, he can’t say he’s really surprised. Of course she has a contingency plan, of course she has plans b-z lined to her disposal. She’s smart and knows time better than him, which is terribly irking.

There’s matters to be attended to, a new timeline that needs to somehow be fixed, without starting another apocalypse, and Five is so, so, _so_ tired. He has been running ragged throughout time for the past two fucking weeks in the pubescent little body running solely on coffee and rage.

His wound from a fight with the Handler, which was maybe a handful of days ago for him, is flaring. The ghost pain of bullets that never ripped through his skin causes his abdomen to itch. Fuck, scar from yanking that tracker out of his arm still acts up, and that was the first injury he got on his first day back in 02019.

But Five can’t rest, because this timeline is still fucked up. 

If Five is honest, though, he’s not surprised. Things can’t be easy, not with this family, and not with the constraints of the laws of time. With Five’s simple existence, he’s sure he’s caused all sorts of anomalies within the timeline (he’s calculated them before, and they’re near infinite, some as simple as a person sneezing when they weren’t going to before, and others resulting in horrific deaths). Don’t get him started on what awful things were caused by his siblings in the 1960s.

(Starting a cult, trying to stop Kennedy’s assassination and his asylum imprisonment, being a body guard for Jack fucking Ruby, Vanya’s run in with the god damn CIA and Sissy, Allison’s new family, the talk with their father, and Eliott’s death…. Jesus Christ, it’s no wonder this timeline is a mess.)

Five is so goddamn tired of it all, of having to fix some fucked up timeline, and if Five is truthful, this timeline isn’t even that bad! Isn’t this what they want, anyway? What they’ve always wanted? To have never been raised by their father? For there to have never been an Umbrella Academy? For Ben to be alive? For all life on earth to still be fucking alive?

The apocalypse was fucking adverted. This isn’t some desolate wasteland, like the one he had to live in for forty plus years. They're not finding the corpses of the people they love in the ruins of a dilapidated building. They’re not completely and utterly alone in a silent world of ash and fire. They’re not scrounging for food, eating expired twinkies and cockroaches and anything they can get their hands on. They’re not so utterly alone that they’re deliriously falling in love with a piece of plastic that is vaguely humanoid (sorry Delores). 

For Five, this timeline is a huge upgrade from the one he was living with. Maybe he’s a bit bitchy to his siblings those first few hours they’re there, as his siblings mourn and freak out over the current state of time. They’re fucking alive, there’s food everywhere, humanity hasn’t been wiped out, and they’re not lost in time. What more could these nitwits want?

His siblings eventually convince him that they still need to “fix time.” Call him a fool, a sap, or whatever, but it’s not just safety that Five prioritizes when it comes to his siblings (although, of course, safety is number one). Happiness is something Five didn’t get much, not as a child training for the Umbrella Academy, not as an adult growing up in the apocalypse, not as an assassin working for the Commission. His siblings didn’t seem to get much, either. So, alright, Five wants to see them happy, give them something he never had and doesn’t deserve.

So, now they’re plotting for a way to “save the world,” or at least put it back the way they found it in 2019. And, maybe, keep Ben alive this time.

-

The Handler arrives in the middle of the night of their third day in this new timeline. 

Five is sleeping on the couch next to the door. The six of them are stuffed inside a heap motel until they can actually, actually plan things out. Five’s been fucking exhausted these past few days (the consequence of having to run on no sleep trying to chase after the impending doom of the inevitable apocalypse). His siblings are crowded on the beds (one for Luther, the other for Vanya, Allison, and Diego) and the bathtub (Klaus).

Five probably could have fit on one of the beds, with either Luther or the girls (he knows Diego would whack him for that) since he’s still in the body of a fucking child, but… Well, he was never a fan of contact as a child, and with all of his experiences of contact being inevitably used against him, he’s still not a fan. So he kicks Klaus off the couch and turns it into his nest where he spends most of his hours asleep when they’re not fruitlessly trying to change a not so doomed future. 

(For now. He keeps his eyes on Vanya. She seems to be fine, but, well, she was having a great time at the farm with Sissy, too, before the second apocalypse. Christ, this family sucks.)

“Hello, Five…”

Five sits ramrod straight. The Handler is leaning over him, a briefcase situated at her feet. The blueish glow of the light on the briefcase sends shadows across her face. Still, he can see her make up, immaculate and concealing, her flaws nonexistent and her lips bloodied. 

“What do you want?” He spits, not bothering being surprised. He is so fucking tired, and if he was honest, he was expecting her to pop back into his life and ruin something. It’s a repeating pattern.

“Not surprised that I came back from the dead?” She huffs. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“No. What do you want?”

She tells her story anyway. Five listens to it, because he wants as many details as possible in situations like these to properly assess how to kick her ass, and listens for any weak points. But Five doesn’t give much merit to her story.

“You’re a cockroach,” he states, simply. “You just won’t fucking die, will you?”

She smiles, sweetly. “Cockroaches can live through nuclear warfare, and can survive the apocalypse. You know that well enough, considering you ate them. You’re quite like a cockroach yourself, you know.”

She reaches for his cheek, but sensing no true ill intent, he lets her. She pinches it, a bit harshly, and leers at him. “You’re fairly hard to kill, too, and I would love to stomp you like the little bug you are.”

He rips away from her and glares. “What do you want?”

“I want everything back the way it was.” She shrugs. “I want to be back at the Commission, in power. And I know you feel that way, too, don’t you? You want everything back. You want the 2019 you and your siblings originated from, just without the apocalypse? Or at the least, that’s what your siblings want, right?”

He frowns at her. “What’s your aim here?”

“You want your family to be happy. Sickening as that is, it works well with what I want, too. So perhaps we can make an exchange, no? I give you something, you give me something. An eye for an eye, but no maliciousness attached.”

“No deal.”

“You haven’t even heard it yet.” She almost pouts, but Five can tell she’s a bit irritated.

“I’m not desperate to come crawling back to you the moment things aren’t ‘perfect.’ Whatever offer you have, it’s not worth it. I’m not going to kill for you just to please my siblings. I did enough of that trying to save them.” He sighs. “So find someone else to bother.”

She scoffs. “I don’t think you realise that your family isn’t exactly safe, do you?”

“Is that a threat?”

“A warning.” She straightens a few wrinkles in her skirt. “You know as well as I do how finicky time is. What is meant to be, is meant to be. Perhaps third time is the charm.”

Five isn’t a fool, he knows what she means despite her ominous and vague words. He straightens a bit, not daring to toss aside her words. “Explain.”

“You’re not a fool to the theory of time, now. I doubt I need to. Time is a river, dear, it flows. Disrupting the flow will make a ripple. It changes a few things, but ultimately it corrects itself.” She pats his cheek, smiling sharply at him. “You know what I mean?”

“A third apocalypse.”

“Bingo. And I’m the only person that could possibly help you advert it.”

Five snarls. “Get out. I don’t need you. You’re going to double cross me. I’m not a fool.”

She hums. “You know, when I said I wanted to revert things back to the way they used to be, I do mean everything.”

She cups his face in her hands, her nails grazing over his cheekbones. She leans in close, her hips hitting the sides of his legs, her face inches away. Five freezes in place, the red of her lipstick reminding him of their first kiss. He’s long since learned not to bother trying to push her off, long since learned not to bother telling her no. She never listened, and Five wasn’t much for wasting time.

Her lips graze his ear, her breath soft. A hand reaches down to fiddle with his tie. “I want what we used to have, Five.”

His breath stutters. “I’m never going to be your underling again.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t love you. You don’t love me. This doesn’t work.”

“I think you’ll find that to be false. In fact, I’m the only person that could ever love you. You may have found your family, and you may love them and they may think they love you, but they don’t know what you’ve done.” He can feel her smile. “I do. And I don't mind.”

He sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t need your help.”

A kiss.

Her lipstick leaves a mark on his cheek. Her lips feel the same, like nothing has changed, like no time has passed, and for a moment he feels as if he’s back in his withered body, being pushed against her desk as she unbuttons his shirt…

It’s soft, not with bruising force. She leans away and licks her lips. She moves off of him and picks up the briefcase. Five feels completely rumpled, wrinkled, and yet she looks as immaculate as always. She always did, after all. Even sex or fights couldn’t get a hair of hers out of place.

“I’m certain I’ll see you soon. This is bigger than you, and even me. Don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

“Don’t wait for me.”

She blows him a kiss before disappearing in a flash of blue. He stumbles to his feet, feeling a familiar ache in his bones. He shoves his hands in his pocket, mentally making a note to take his machete back from Luther to put under his pillow, when he feels the familiar texture of paper.

The shifting of floorboards catches his attention, and he turns to face the doorway.

Diego is watching, his eyebrows furrowed, like he’s thinking. That’s never a good sign.

“Do you want something?” Five snarls, because after seeing the woman he was so fucking relieved at having killed come back and casually enter his home was fraying at his nerves a bit. 

His eyes are trained on his face, but he’s not meeting his eyes. It’s not surprising- Diego always had trouble doing that as a child, but he has a feeling this time it’s different. Oh.

The kiss.

Bitterly, he rubs at the lipstick. She’s no better than a fucking attack dog. Marking what’s hers in every way she can. Possessive little bitch.

“Are you…” He sounds unsure, his voice faltering. Five has a feeling he saw quite a bit of that conversation. He sighs, thinking about the apartment above next to them and how one of the women on the top floor has a coffee pot that usually finished making coffee around this time. 

“No.” His voice is flat, and before Diego can bother trying again, he vanishes, allowing the thrum of his power to soothe his nerves for just a moment.

He appears in the kitchen of the apartment. The coffee is simmering. He hears movement in the next room, but he knows the woman who lives here is busy finishing an art project. He took the liberty of analysing every person on their street, in case there was a return of assassins similar to the IKEA mafia. He has everyone’s routines memorized by now.

He takes the coffee pot and drinks straight from it before digging the paper out of his jacket. The coffee is scalding and burns his tongue, but it’s a nice sensation, something that keeps him grounded, tethered. He keeps drinking. 

He unfolds the paper and scoffs. It’s a phone number, with a lipstick stain embroidering the corner. He folds it back up, neatly, and slips it back in his pocket. He’s not going to call her, but, well. It doesn’t hurt, he supposes, to have a plan c.

-

The third apocalypse is real, and they have seven days to stop it. Five is getting very tired of these deadlines. 

His siblings dance around, trying to figure a solution. Five has a feeling everything is going to go to shit once again, and they won’t be able to avoid it until the very last second, just like all the other times, and it won’t get fixed. The only way their problems get “solved” is by causing a bigger problem to cancel out the last one.

Christ, this fucking sucks.

He watches the children from the second floor of the apartment play with the children from the fourth floor in the street. They’re a bit younger than his current body, playing a game of tag. The youngest is clearly having the hardest time keeping up, and the two middle children pick on him.

He knows he’s not a child, that he hasn’t been since he was thirteen and dug his siblings bodies out of the ash of their childhood home, but he sometimes wishes he could be one again. He wishes he still had that naivety, that innocence, that sparkle in his eyes. Even when he was under his father, he still had a spark, a hope, a longing for a better future. Sometimes, Five can’t help but feel like absolute shit, that the world is a hell that can not be fixed.

A hand on his shoulder starters him harshly enough to warp. He reappears five feet away, and finds Diego staring at him, holding his hands up in surrender. Five’s been avoiding him for days with the excuse of trying to solve the apocalypse and spend more time with Vanya to make sure she doesn’t blow something up. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you, bro.”

“You didn’t scare me.” His voice is sharp, defensive. He needs to calm down. He’s lucky Diego wasn’t some assassin sent by her to off him. He was an assassin, for fuck’s sake. He needs to get a better grip on himself.

Diego looks like he’s about to say something smart, but then decides better. “Look, I know you like to be blunt, so I won’t beat around the bushes. What the fuck was going on with you and the Handler that night?”

Five shrugs. “It’s been taken care of.” Well, not really. He’s been trying to track her down, calculating her whereabouts to kill her again, because honestly, something is going to have to stick, he hopes. 

Diego frowns. “We’re a family, Five. We’re supposed to tell each other things now. It’s not the apocalypse, you’re not alone.”

Anger coils in him, and he hates that that is his gut reaction. He thinks he should feel sadness at Diego’s words, something akin to the melancholy expected of him, and yet it’s only rage. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“I’m trying to!” Diego runs his fingers through his hair. “Fine, fine. Answer this question for me. Do you love her?”

Did Five love her?

Instinctively, Five would bark out an easy no. How could he love the woman that was keeping him from returning home? The woman who saw him as nothing more than a weapon, nothing more than a shiny knife, a tool? The woman who could never love him back, who would never love him back? 

Five doesn’t love her. Five can’t afford to love her. Five has a world to save, a timeline to piece back together, family relationships to salvage, and an organization to crumble. He has so many things to do, and he can not be distracted or held back by fleeting feelings for a woman who wants to crush him under her heel like a bug.

Five can’t love her. She doesn’t love him back, and loving her is just a distraction from his mission.

But does that necessarily mean that he doesn’t love her?

Five keeps the answer to himself.

“No,” he states, flatly, agitated. A hand moves to rub at the spot she had last kissed him. “She’s a fucking monster.”

“It’s okay if you do love her, you know.” Diego sits on the couch, and Five watches him carefully. “There’s no shame. Love doesn’t make you weak.”

“And did love help you with Lila?” He snarled.

Diego’s temper almost flared. He looked riled, but he punched the pillow and took a few breaths, and Five was getting annoyed that his sibling was deciding now was the time to mature. “No.”

“So what is your fucking point with this conversation?”

“Look, I’m just trying to-” He runs his fingers through his hair. This conversation wasn’t going where he wanted. “I understand, you know, what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t love you back. Or someone who just wants to use you. I understand, Five.”

No, you don’t understand.

The only person in this godforsaken family that could possibly understand what he was going through was Vanya, maybe. But, well, of course, their circumstances are completely different from each other.

Vanya was manipulated and abused by her boyfriend. She was innocent and kind and didn’t deserve his treatment and if he wasn’t already dead Five would skin him alive for touching his sister, for psychologically and physically harming her. Vanya was innocent and didn’t deserve nor understand what was happening to her.

Five was not innocent. Five knows that the Handler is trying to manipulate him, and there’s definitely no abuse between them, because, well, they’re not even really together and they never were and there was no pretense that they cared for each other. Five was a murderer and an overall piece of shit human being. Five was not manipulated and was not abused because Five knows she’s trying to manipulate him, knows that these little games of cat and mouse where they try to kill each other doesn’t qualify as abuse when you know that was just how this relationship was going to become.

Five runs his fingers through his hair, musing it up even worse. Diego watches with a steady gaze. No, he doesn’t understand him or what he’s going through, because he’s not going through anything. No one can understand him, not him, not Vanya. Because Five brought this on himself the moment he let her kiss him, the moment he let their professional relationship become lustful, the moment he let her whisk him away from the apocalyptic ruins to the Commission. 

No, no one can understand. Because there’s nothing to understand.

The relationship between them wasn’t one of love. It was barely even a relationship. They just had sex, that was it. She wanted to keep him on a chain, figured that making love with him would keep him on her side, but Five wasn’t fucking stupid. There was no love between them. Five isn’t in love.

“Stop pretending to be a psychiatrist already,” he finally decides to say. “I see why they kept you in that asylum- you’re delusional. You’re completely wrong to think you understand a single thing about me. Don’t project your issues onto me, don’t project that fucked up relationship you and Lila had onto me. Lila might have treated you like shit but that doesn’t mean you’re Cupid. Go find a real psychiatrist for yourself before trying to “help” me. You’ve got lots of issues for them to dissect.”

He warps away.

-

Diego and him don’t talk much after that. Diego tries, of course, but Five won’t listen. 

He doesn’t understand.

Frankly, Five wouldn’t want him to understand.

-

Five’s been having a hard time sleeping, to say the least.

Firstly, there’s a fucking apocalypse to stop. He just can’t fucking catch a break. 

Secondly, the Handler is loose, and he has no idea where to find her. She could show up at any moment, and Five does not want to be as unprepared as he was last time. There’s a knife in his pocket now and a machete under his pillow in case she reappears, deciding that slaughtering him in his sleep like a dog was better than waiting for him to submit.

He slips into the kitchen, his nerves frayed. A third fucking apocalypse. These past three weeks have been absolute fucking shit. He wishes he hadn’t traveled through time at thirteen more than ever- he was the domino, the skipping stone to send ripples through time. He’s done the calculations, he knows that the original timeline was caused by his fuck up.

Perhaps, if he steals a briefcase and travels back to thirteen year old him the day before he jumps, he could convince him to stay. Or maybe bring Vanya with him. Something.

They’d probably just end up in the same situation as now, a different future, but a similar hell. He’ll have to do a few calculations before deciding on if that plan is good or not. For now, he busies himself with lathering peanut butter on some bread.

“It’s a bit early for a growing boy like you to be awake, hm?”

Five startles, gripping the butter knife tight as he aims it at the body of the voice, right for her neck. Allison gazes at him with unimpressed eyes, sipping at some hot chocolate while she leans on the kitchen table. Fuck, how did he not notice her.

He sighs and sets the knife on the table. He’s becoming rusty, and it’s only been three weeks since his last job. Well, not considering the slaughter of the Commission's board members, but.. Either way, he was slipping. He’ll never be of any use if he’s this fucked.

“Didn’t see you there,” he acknowledges, ripping open the bag of marshmallows he had stolen the first day they arrived. Money wasn’t hard to come by when Klaus was a con man, Allison could rumour, and Five could teleport- stealing was easy.

“What are you doing awake?”

“Surveillance.”

“Not doing a very good job then, if you missed me.”

Five’s lips twitch. She’s always been good at riling him. He was the only person who actually bothered to learn how to deflect her rumours, after all. She had to think of other ways to get under his skin.

“It’s been a long night.”

Allison watches him, her eyes appearing… Sad? He isn’t sure.

“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”

Five smashes the top piece of his sandwich on the bottom piece, causing the sugary filling to fall out of the bread like a tube of toothpaste. He eyes her, his fingers forming fists.

“What are you talking about?”

“Diego told me,” she easily answers. “He tried an intervention with you, and since that didn’t work, he’s passed the torch to me.”

Five rolls his eyes. “Of course. He can never clean up his own messes.” He picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, before continuing, “But we have more important things to care about. The Handler is not important. We have an apocalypse to stop. So don’t bother.”

“Well, we can’t stop the apocalypse with you acting like such a hot mess.” She takes a sip of her cocoa, ignoring his glare. “So talk to me, Five. Get it off your chest.”

“No.” He moves to grab the coffee pot, craving the heat and the caffeine. He hasn’t ate or drank much during these past few weeks. That’s probably why he’s so terribly off his game.

“Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You guys can’t play therapist when you all desperately need to see one, you know.”

Allison sighs, and whatever she has in mind is clearly about to leave her lips. “Five, I know this is personal and you’re not much for letting people in, but just tell me this. Did you and the Handler ever get in a relationship?”

Five freezes under her words. There’s the slightest bit of hesitation, small enough that she may have not noticed, though he won’t underestimate her. Out of all of their siblings, Allison is the one Five respects most, simply because she understands what a wretched world this is and she knows how to use her abilities to take her far. She’s powerful, she knows it, but she still attempts to remain kind. Five sometimes wishes he was more like her.

“Strictly a professional relationship. She was my boss.” He leans against the kitchen counter, cradling the coffee pot. His body language is defensive, he can feel, and he attempts to fix it, straightening a bit, making eye contact with her.

Allison hums, glancing at the magazine next to her. She doesn’t believe him, of course, and Five is both thankful he can’t hide from her and terrified that he can’t hide from her. What’s an assassin with emotions? What’s an assassin that’s predictable?

Dead.

“It’s been twenty years for me, and forty for you. We’re not close, not yet, and that’s okay. You don’t have to share any information you don’t want to. I won’t coerce it, and I won’t rumor you.” There’s something bitter in those last two sentences, and Five can’t figure out what. “But I can tell you this- whatever little dance you used to play back at the Commission with her, and whatever you’re still playing now, it isn’t healthy. Whatever ties you have with her, you need to sever them. She doesn’t love you, Five.”

He bristles at that, his knuckles going paper white from gripping the handle of the coffee pot so hard. He almost snarled at her. “You don’t have any fucking right to talk to me about failed relationships.” He doesn’t dare say the name, doesn’t dare insult her further with that line because he knows Patrick was a bastard but she still loved him, and he’s trying not to be so abrasive and harsh. But he’s still pissed. “You don’t know anything, none of you do. So unless I outright ask for your help, which you morons know is never going to happen, then I don’t want any unsolicited advice about anything I do. Especially _not_ my love life.”

Allison watches him carefully. She’s registered the jab at her failed romances, but she doesn’t appear to be too miffed. Five always had a hard time riling her. “Well, should you ever want help from some morons, I’m happy to give you an ear and advice when you stop being a little bitch and realise that there are things you don’t understand, and that you don’t have to do everything on your own.”

That was the point of all this, wasn’t it? To never be alone again? To get back everything he lost? To hear their voices again?

Five slams the coffee pot on the counter. The top of it cracks ever so slightly. “I don’t need anyone’s help. I've never needed it. And I don’t need relationship advice or whatever with the Handler. She’s my fucking mortal enemy- she’s not my school girl crush.”

He moves to walk out, content with giving his few cents and getting the last word. He doesn’t dare turn around, knowing Allison will be watching him with a sad expression.

-

They’re running out of time, they’re running out of time, god fucking damn it-

Five sits on the bed of the motel room, paper crumpled in his fists, his knuckles tight against the flip phone he stole from some man a few minutes ago. The other end of the line continues to ring, ring, ring and Five’s anger is prickling. Okay, now that he’s interested, she’s not going to bother with him then, hm?

His skin prickles before he registers the flash of blue light behind him. He jumps to his feet, yanking the knife out of his pocket before spinning towards the Handler, fully prepared to rip out her throat. She laughs, easily, languidly, as he points it at her. He hates the lacking unease on her expression.

“Did you call me in hopes of killing me?” She asks, tilting her head. “You’re not that simpleminded, are you?”

“No.” He straightens himself, adjusting his tie. “I want to hear your proposal.”

The statement, while neutral, is certainly a moment of weakness. Her lips curl into a shark smile, and Five feels as if he’s staring into the eyes of a predator. They are empty with nothing but violence. Do Five’s eyes reflect her own?

“Oh, is little Five accepting that he can’t do anything without me?”

“I don’t have to listen to you, you know.”

“You wouldn’t be calling me if you didn’t.”

“So will you humour me? Or is this a waste of precious time?”

“Trust me, it’s no waste.” She edges closer. “I’ll give you my proposition. I’m going to send us back in time, about two weeks, at the Commission. You’re going to kill Herb and a few other designated shitholes in line of succession. I’m going to give you a briefcase in return.”

Five hums, appearing discontented with the deal. In all honesty, that’s not too terrible. He’d hate to kill Herb, but for his family, and the safety of this world, then he would do anything. He doesn’t want to kill, not anymore, but… Things have to be done. 

“Is that all?”

“Well…” She curls her fingers around his tie, yanking him forward a bit. “I do have one thing in mind…”

She shoves him backwards. He nearly warps, but she manages to keep a tight grip on his wrists, pinning him against the bed. Five glares at her, confusion disguised as rage as she straddles him, sitting on top of him without a care, her eyes sharp and predatory.

“I want insurance,” she states, easily. “If you don’t do your part, if you chicken out, then I want something, just in case. So, here’s what I want.”

She lets go of his wrists, and for some reason, Five isn’t bothering to shove her off. Her fingers nimbly unbutton his jacket before slinking towards his shirt. She grins at him, almost happily. “I want to fuck you.”

He growls, arms moving to shove her off. She catches one of his fists before he disappears to the other side of the room, his knife brandished. She tsks at him.

“When I said I wanted to reset everything, I meant it.” She shrugs. “I want us to go back to our old relationship. Plotting to kill you is fun, of course, but I miss the way you squirm. I miss you, Five.”

The words hurt, admittedly. It’s a juxtaposition, that statement. She misses him, she likes to watch him squirm. Does she miss him? Truly?

(Did anyone, when he disappeared forty years ago?)

“It’s to save your family,” She states, hitting him right where it hurts, right at his weak spot. He’s so terribly predictable now, he supposes. “Don’t you want that, at least?”

“I’ll kill for you,” he states, “but I won’t get in bed with you.”

“You’re not thinking very rationally,” she chastises. “Truly, you’re a mess without me. Think about it, love. This is such an easy proposition. If you’re willing to kill like the little homicidal bastard you are, then sex isn’t such a big deal. You’d be foolish to turn this down.”

He would be, wouldn’t he?

He’s done it with her before, many, many times. This isn’t a huge deal. He can sacrifice a bit of pride for this, for his family, for the world. He’d be killing for her- why does this hurt worse than potential slicing Herb’s throat?

She grabs him by the shirt and starts to pull him back towards the bed. Five is a little dazed, honestly, at the prospect of having to return to their past relationship. It’s been weeks since their last time together as something a little more intimate than boss and employee. He doesn’t want this back.

He lets her push him back on the bed. She wrangles the tie off of his throat and watches him for a few moments, curiously. He watches her right back, still hesitant. He knows what he has to do, that this is the right thing, that he will be saving the world if he does this, but his skin prickles at her touch and his stomach churns at the thought.

“I want us to go back to the way things were,” she repeats, fingers moving through his hair. “I want you to come back to the Commission with me. We were quite the powerhouse, you know.”

“I was nothing to you.”

“You can be my partner.” Oh, partner. Now that’s a word that can be interpreted. “You’re a ruthless assassin. I’m a cunning leader. We could get the Commission back to its former glory.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Sure you do. You’re a killer, Five, and no amount of familial love is going to change that.” She shrugs. “Look, you might think being with your family is going to change you. It won’t. It hasn’t. You’re still a horrible killer with a terrible bloodlust you can’t sate. You might find it waning a bit when you spend time with your family, but when the dust settles and there’s nothing left for you but a domestic life, you’ll be craving this job, you’ll be desperate.”

She leans down, her face right next to his ear. “I know you, Five. You’re a man of action. You’ve been chasing these apocalypses for the past forty years. What are you when there’s nothing for you to do? What are you when the world isn’t ending, when your family doesn’t need a saviour but a brother? Do you honestly think you can be that? A brother? When you’ve done nothing but survive in a wasteland for decades, alone and mad? Do you think you can be a brother when you’ve killed hundreds of people, when you’ve become calloused over murder? DO you think you can live a domestic life knowing the amount of blood on your hands?”

She laughs, softly. “You’ll tire of it, Five. You’ll tire of domestic life. That’s who you are. You need stimulation. A job with me will keep you from falling into a life of discontentment and boredom.”

“And you know,” the Handler whispers in his ear, her breath hot. “I’m truly the only person alive who could ever love you anyway, darling.”

Five has a few problems with that sentence. He’s still not quite convinced she’s a person, nor whether she's alive.

“You’re really not,” Five growls. It comes off as a bit desperate, a bit too defensive. Her words aren’t bothering him, not at all, because she’s wrong. She’s wrong about everything, she doesn’t know him, she doesn't understand-

“I'm the only person in the entire world who can understand your little predicament.” She toys with her hair, curling it around her finger. “You’re little age problem, your wrong body with a wrong mind.”

Her other hand begins to drift. “And of course, I'm the only person that could love you for you. I'm the only person that could possibly love all of you. I'm the only person that knows all of you, sweetheart. I've seen you drenched in blood, I’ve watched you slaughter countless foes, I know what kind of a cold blooded, ruthless killer you are behind your pubescent charms.”

She pinches his cheeks. “Darling, who else could love you when your hands are stained red? Your siblings? A stranger to become your soulmate? Who else understands you, knows you, and doesn’t mind the change in body?”

Five knows she’s manipulating him. Hell, he’s been around enough manipulative people to know a few tricks, to see through them. He’s listened to his father wrangle his siblings into using their powers against each other. He’s listened to Allison speak lies into existence. He’s read enough psychology books to understand these things and identify them.

Truth be told, he’s done some manipulation himself. It never makes him feel good after, and sometimes it feels worse than killing, but he’s done it, too. And considering how much time he used to spend with the Handler, he knows how to do it well. It’s her tricks that he really picks up on.

So he knows she’s just manipulating him.

The problem with her manipulations, however, is that her lies are always grounded in a bit of truth. Her webs are sewn with just enough threads of truth to catch a person off guard, to make them question themself, to make them believe her. Five knows she’s just saying these things, that she doesn’t love him, that she could never love him, but...

Well, who could love him?

His body is fucked up. He’s not thirteen, not at all, but how the fuck is he supposed to love anyone like this? He definitely can’t date other thirteen year olds- that’s fucked up, considering he’s nearly sixty. But anyone who would want to date him at this point in time needs to have their throat slashed. It’s only going to get worse as time goes on.

And will his siblings love him? Actually love him? They know he was an assassin, sure, but he doesn’t think that has actually registered in them. The fact that he has killed many, many people. The fact that there are so many ghosts haunting him. They don’t realise how much carnage he’s caused. 

He’s not their thirteen year old brother who disappeared twenty years ago, for them. Can he be a brother for them, when he hasn’t seen them in forty years? When the time he did spend outside of isolation was used to kill people?

He narrows his eyes at her. “You could never love me.”

“Not conventionally,” she admits, her lips ghosting his collarbone. He shudders. “But more so than anyone else. I know you Five, intimately. You’re a serial killer pretending to be someone normal. But a normal life isn’t possible for people like us, darling. Accept that.”

Five sucks in a deep breath as she begins to slide down his shorts. He should stop her, honestly. She’s wrong, wrong, wrong. He doesn’t want things to go back to the way they were, he doesn’t want this at all, but he wants to save his family....

He’s not a good person, he knows that, but… He was hoping he could at least pretend to be, for his family. 

He just needs to swallow his pride. He doesn’t stop her.

“So what do you say, Fivey?” He feels the bite on his shoulder, barely registering the skin breaking as she bites into him like meat before sucking him dry. Her lips are dripping with his blood as her hands continue to slither down, down, down. “Do we have a deal?”

Do they?

His head feels a bit fuzzy as her fingers grips his thighs. Memories of past meetings between them obscure his line of thinking. He needs to get it together, needs to be alert and sharp minded, being so close to a predator, but his mind wanders. Would going back to the relationship they had be so terrible? If his family was safe, would it be so bad?

Perhaps staying away from his family was the best choice, really. He seemed to be the bad luck charm, the bringer of the apocalypses. If he stayed away from them and worked with the Handler, then surely, everything would be fine. They might miss him a bit, but they’d only known him for three weeks. They’d already mourned him for twenty years. He’s sure they’d move on just fine- they already did.

Would a relationship be so terrible? He didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him, but… 

There’s a slamming sound. Five and the Handler’s heads swivel towards the front door of the motel, where five figures leer at the sight before them. Admittedly, Five’s cheeks burn a bit at the realization of what they’re seeing.

A knife slices a piece of the Handler’s hair, causing the silver blonde locks to float to the ground. 

“Get off my fucking brother!” Diego howls, his face a vivid red, three knives held in his hands. Vanya was horribly pale, a faint glow emanating from her. Klaus looked like the human embodiment of a 404 error screen, Allison’s face was twisted in a terrible snarl, and Luther looked ready to start smashing things.

The Handler moves off of Five, clearly having assessed her probabilities and deciding to back down. She grabbed the briefcase, watching with amusement as Five struggled to pull his shorts back on in front of his siblings. “Well Five, I’ll let you think about my proposal a bit. Good luck.”

She disappears just as another knife sailed in her direction.

“Are you alright?” Allison asks, rushing towards his side. She places a hand on his shoulder that he immediately shrugs off, moving towards the other side of the bed. Vanya’s glowing fades and she moves towards him just as the others begin to follow after Allison. 

“I’m fucking peachy,” he scathes, his voice hoarse. He struggles to button his shirt, his hands shaking for some fucking reason, and Klaus reaches out, stopping him. The touch makes him flinch, but Klaus just simply pushes his hands aside and begins to button his shirt for him. Humiliation is burning at him but he doesn’t stop him.

“We- we heard quite a bit-” Luther starts, looking completely uncertain over what to do. He stays farther away than the others, and Five is thankful for the space.

“She was manipulating you,” Allison states. 

“No, no.” Five shakes his head. “No, it’s not manipulation if I know she’s manipulating me. It doesn’t work. I’m not being manipulated. I’m not.”

Vanya watches him with a careful expression. “That’s not how that works, Five.”

“She doesn’t love you,” Klaus states, somberly, and Five nearly reaches for his neck.

“I’m not fucking stupid!” He shouts. “I know that! I know that!”

“Were you going to let her…”

“Yes- No- Maybe! Fuck off!”  
“You don’t have to make those sacrifices for us, you know.” Klaus frowns at him, and Five hates that look on his face.

“It’s not just about you,” he spits. “It’s about the end of the fucking world. If saving the world means I have to do something I don’t really want to do but is ultimately harmless, then it’s an easy trade off, alright?”

“You don’t need the Handler. We can do this without her, Five.”

He rubs his eyes, frantically. “It doesn’t matter, alright? Just forget this happened.”

There’s an arm around his shoulder. He glances up to find Vanya pulling him towards her, trying to comfort him. She grips his shoulder tight. “Let it out, Five.”

Something in him fights at the words. It’s a command, and Five is genetically coded to rebel against everything he’s told to do. It’s an order.

But it’s not. It’s Vanya.

Allison joins her, pulling both of them into her arms. Klaus joins in next, eagerly scooping them as best he can into his gangly arms. Diego looks nearly sick at the prospect of showing affection, but he still wraps his arms around Allison and Klaus. Luther hesitantly joins, squeezing them softly. Five is right in the center, feeling them all, feeling all this love for him and each other.

Five starts to cry, softly, gently.

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, Five. And it doesn’t matter what you will do. None of us are perfect. You don’t have to sell yourself to her to try to make up for what you’ve done.”

“It’s okay to be weak.”

“I’m gonna kill her,” Diego offers as his comfort. And, well, that does make him feel better, actually. “Fucking pedophile creep.”

Five laughs at that, outright. “You don’t stand a chance against her.”

“My rage is so infinite that I think I have a very good shot.”

“Look, we’ve all done bad things,” Allison begins. “And we’re definitely not better off without you, so don’t go thinking you can just disappear on us. Your martyr complex is just as bad as Diego’s.”

“Fuck you!”

“But what we’re trying to say,” Vanya interjects, “is that we love you, and we’d miss you terribly if you went back to the Handler, and that we can solve this problem together. You don’t have to carry the weight of the world alone, alright? We love you.”

Alright.

Five starts to sob, uncontrollably, in his siblings arms. It’s been a long, long time since he’s heard those words, notwithstanding the Handler and her venomous bite to them. 

They stay there for a long, long time. Time that could be used to stop the apocalypse, or hunting the Handler, or anything else. But Five can't think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t like the ending but whatever...


End file.
